The Dodos remain true to their instincts on energetic sixth album

Even for a band built on the force, persistence, and interplay of its rhythmic elements, The Dodos’ latest album is a kinetic marvel.

The sixth album from the duo of Meric Long (vocals and guitar) and Logan Kroeber (drums and percussion) pushes the band’s restless energy higher than ever, while also adding a welcome sense of without-a-net adventurousness. Recorded on the heels of 2013’s Carrier, in the same studio (San Francisco’s Tiny Telephone) and with the same engineers (Jay and Ian Pellicci), Individ is the sound of a band confident and engaged, striking while the amps and mics are hot.

After Carrier saw The Dodos turning to music in the face of tumult and upheaval after the death of guitarist Christopher Reimer—a third band member for about a year, whose influence shows in Long’s expanded guitar style—this record finds the band simply excited to play. Long and Kroeber created the songs in studio as they explored, pushing for a bigger sound while they zeroed in on The Dodos’ essence, the musical dialogue between drums and guitar.

At the top of the record is the six-minute “Precipitation,” which uses the metaphor of a storm to emphasize resilience, persistence, second chances, and moving on. The song could reference the band itself, or a different challenge all together, but Long’s voice on the repeated outro chorus of “Let go of it / Get out of here / Let’s get out of here / For good” reverberates with determination and conviction. “Competition,”Individ’s first single, stacks a fuzz-laden electric lead guitar on top of a relentlessly percussive acoustic guitar and drum attack, a combination of The Dodos’ old signature strengths and a newer indulgence. “Darkness” brings in the fingerpicking that Long has employed so effectively before, particularly on quieter songs likeCarrier’s “Relief,” but here it’s one aspect of multi-layered guitar sounds. “Goodbyes And Endings,” the album’s strongest song, sits right in the middle, featuring multiple time signatures, all stitched together seamlessly so that one of The Dodos’ most complex songs is also one of the band’s catchiest. Individ finishes with a strong and varied trio—a heavily distorted riff guiding “Retriever,” then the polyrhythms receding for the enticingly straightforward and sharp “Bastard,” and finally the epic “Pattern/Shadow,” which shifts from a skittering guitar and militarily precise drumbeat to a soaring ballad to a freaky jam-out over the course of its seven minutes.

The album’s cover—an explosion of color and light, rendered by forceful lines—stands in contrast to the stark, silhouetted figure and distant tornado on Carrier (not to mention the bleak imagery on the band’s previous effort, No Color). That’s no surprise, given the burst of new vitality The Dodos display on Individ.

When Plaza Liquors and Fine Wines opened, the number of American breweries was at its post-Prohibition low and homebrewing was still illegal. Napa Valley, fresh off the surprise victory of California wines over their French counterparts at the 1976 Judgment of Paris, was just beginning to establish its reputation.

Now, Plaza Liquors carries an inventory of more than 700 beers and a carefully chosen selection of wines that goes well beyond France and Napa, including another region on the rise: Baja Arizona.

The store is both compact and overwhelming, the bottle-lined shelves carefully organized by variety and style, with large beer coolers dominating one wall. Options abound no matter what your preference is, and the staff is ready with recommendations. It’s in an unassuming strip mall, sure, but Plaza Liquors has a “world-class” 98 rating from Beer Advocate.

Through years of massive growth in beer and wine producers, shifting consumer tastes, and the arrival of big-box liquor stores, Plaza has kept its focus on making the customer happy.

“Really for the past 30 years, we’ve done nothing but have increases in our business, with the exception of the latest recession,” says the owner, Mark Thomson. “Customer service has always been the bottom line here, and I’ve never let go of that theory.”

Even as traditional grocery stores, drug stores, discount outlets like Costco, specialty markets like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, and large beer, wine and liquor retailers like BevMo! and Total Wine & More have increased their fight for a share of the $400 billion beverage industry (as estimated by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States), Plaza has thrived, mostly by doing things that others aren’t.

“A lot of people have been around for a long time selling liquor at discount rates. I’ve always had to deal with chains and I’ve had to devise different ways of outsmarting them,” Thomson says.

Today, Plaza draws people with a hugely popular mix-a-six bottled beer business and weekly beer and wine tastings that educate customers as well as provide the store with fresh data on what its customers like best. Add in an expert sales staff and a culture of quality and it’s no surprise that Plaza is a perennial winner of Tucson Weekly’s Best of Tucson awards.

“With box stores, I think a lot of people don’t like having to shop around such a big store. We have a tremendous selection, but within an area that’s easy to shop and with people to help,” Thomson says.

The store opened on Jan. 15, 1978, in Campbell Plaza, next to what was then an AJ Bayless, which didn’t have a liquor license. A much smaller store, Plaza depended on grocery shoppers from next door as it built up a clientele. Seven years later, Plaza moved to its current location at 2642 N. Campbell Ave., where having its own parking lot allowed the store to be more independent and start focusing on a more varied selection.

“The first thing I got on was the wine. We were a liquor store at first, but I wanted to develop our wine business, so from the very beginning that became my specialty,” Thomson says. “I went to wine country and visited wineries and read all I could and fortunately, we got to be one of the go-to places for wine.”

Thomson added a tasting license in 1980, but just this summer upgraded the store to include a tasting bar.

“I’ve always used it, for informal tastings and formal tastings, but recently we’ve decided to take it more seriously,” he says. “Our focus on tastings is comparative tastings. With wine, we’ll take five or six bottles of, say, a Cabernet Sauvignon in a certain price range and taste them, with our customers as judges. That really gives us an idea of what the customers like. It works out really well. The customers, as tasters, have a lot more energy for that type of tasting. They feel they’re contributing, so they get really into it.”

The store holds tastings every week—and line up the tastings with 10 percent discount days: Wednesdays for wine and Thursdays for beer.

The craft beer explosion beginning about 15 years ago gave Plaza another opportunity to distinguish itself.

“I wanted to swing our attention over to beer and the best way to do that was to increase our selection. We built up inventory to more than 700 beers. That’s something we were on the forefront of from the beginning of the craft-beer explosion, so we caught that wave just right,” Thomson says.

But it wasn’t just selection that brought in the craft-beer crowd.

“One thing that’s made a huge difference is we went to singling about 10 years ago, mix-a-six. That not only worked, it became the mainstay of our business. You don’t get beer bored and we don’t charge any extra,” he says. “You could come in at any time of day and somebody is mixing a six. People in general love that opportunity. It’s variety, it’s adventure, it’s exploration, and it gives people the opportunity to do their own little beer tastings, so they can learn and appreciate the styles more.”

Beer specialist Gabriel Romero, who’s been at Plaza for about a year and a half, says the mix-a-six rewards adventurous and curious customers. He should know.

“I was a customer here for years. When I turned 21 in the late-’90s, the craft-beer trend hit. I lived up the street and I just fell in love with it,” he says. “Plaza was always the place that had things first. Some of the bigger stores are starting to catch up a bit, but we’re always rotating the stock and bringing in new things. We have the old standards, but we try to get a selection that’s different.”

With so many new breweries—the number of U.S. craft breweries has doubled in the last eight years—and a wide range of customer tastes, Plaza works to keep its selection eclectic.

“Every week there’s something new we can bring in,” Romero says. “We bring in things from everywhere. Our selection holds up to the big stores for sure, and we know what we’re talking about here.”

That expertise is what matters, Thomson says, keeping Plaza a step ahead even as others have gone to the mix-a-six model.

“With the chains, even though some of them have gone to that, most stores don’t because it’s too labor intensive. So much human labor goes into stocking 650 cold beers every day,” he says.

And when those employees on the floor stocking coolers and wine racks are the same ones ordering, Plaza has a big advantage over a long corporate decision-making chain. One example Thomson cites is Iron John’s Brewing Company, the local small-batch brewery that began this year.

“We are all about Iron John. He’s always happy to run over the latest batch. That’s almost our No. 1 brewery now. Big stores don’t stock that,” he says.

“We’ve always focused on local wine and beer. Those are our neighbors and they need our support as much as we need their support. But we don’t just focus on Tucson. We love Flagstaff beers. We love Phoenix beers.”

One thing Plaza doesn’t stock is the corporate wineries you can find in the big-box stores.

“Something that’s really attracted our wine buyers, just like our craft beer people, is we deal almost exclusively in genuinely family-owned wineries,” Thomson says. “I take pains to point that out to customers. If they’re in here supporting us, they’re the type of person who would want to support the family-owned wineries too.”

Wine specialist Allen Rodriguez worked at Plaza for 13 years, then left to work on the wholesale side for 11 years, and recently returned, bringing his decades of knowledge.

“I’ve been in and out of so many retail stores over the years, and I’ve told Mark that his customer service standards are better than I’ve seen almost anyplace else,” he says. “That’s where the knowledge part comes in. If we’re out of a certain wine, I can show a customer four or five others.”

Plaza did struggle for a few years after the 2008 economic crisis, but sales now are over pre-recession levels, despite the increased competition from the likes of BevMo! and Total Wine. Mostly, Thomson credits his “long list of good employees.”

“I’ve been lucky. My employees have taken care of me and been really good to the customers as well,” Thomson says. “We’ve staked our business on the belief that if you’re a good store and you treat people well, they’ll come back and they’ll tell other people.” ✜

It’s all by design, presenting “Secret Evil” as a collection of the singer-songwriter’s Detroit roots and ever-evolving influences.

“I wanted it to be a really versatile record. I tried to make it a bit of everything I’ve been writing and a little bit of all the styles I’ve been dabbling in. There are the ballads, the really soulful, surfy throwback stuff, the Motown stuff, the gothic-gypsy stuff,” Hernandez says. “The number one thing for me, more than it being a fluid record, was to have all my influences together on my first album and I wanted to leave room for the second record to go a number of different directions.”

Hernandez grew up listening to her parents’ music, which spanned an interesting range: The Doors, Alice Cooper, MC5 and “lots of heavier darker stuff” for her father and ’80s new wave, The Cure and Joy Division for her slightly younger mother. Her own tastes brought in gypsy music and punk later on.

“My influences are so all over the place from my whole life, so when I started writing, I didn’t know what direction I wanted to go. I just let it happen and didn’t try to write with any limitation as far as genre goes,” she says.

Whether a song turns into a revved-up surf-rocker or a slow-burning slow tune is something Hernandez leaves up to the songs themselves, rather than trying to force a particular sound.

“Usually when I’m writing, I’ll record it in my shitty little demos in a million different ways to see what feels the best,” she says. “It’s all song by song. I’ll write a song and just build on it, whether I start with guitar or start with piano, build it from there and add to it as far as production goes depending on what that particular song needs.”

After moving from Detroit to Chicago to Kansas City, Hernandez taught herself both piano and guitar, and “Secret Evil” shows both sides of her, as a musician and songwriter.

“I definitely feel more comfortable writing on the piano. The ways the keys are laid out, it’s easier for me composing music, but I like to change it up a lot,” she says. “I have a completely different style of writing when I’m writing on guitar, so I like to split it up equally.”

After moving back to Detroit in 2009, Hernandez transitioned from solo singer-songwriter to bandleader, putting together the Deltas and putting together a large stable of songs to draw from for her debut record. Hernandez and The Deltas recorded 15 at Sonic Ranch in El Paso and ultimately chose 11 for “Secret Evil.”

“The hardest part was picking the songs. I had about 100 to pick from,” she says. “The writing process started so long ago because this is my first full-length. The record has songs written in the past year and stuff from a few years ago. It was cool to be able to go through my catalog of songs and pick what were the most meaningful to me and what I wanted to see on the record together.”

From the band’s inception through Secret Evil, Jessica Hernandez & The Deltas have evolved a great deal. Before the current tour, they wood-shedded for a few days at a cabin in northern Michigan, writing and demoing songs for a new record, experimenting with writing together as a full band.

“When I first started it was more of a solo thing, I was playing acoustic or piano and would have friends of mine back me. It was an ever-evolving thing and ever tour was a different lineup,” Hernandez says. “Over the last couple years, I’ve been trying to find a solid group to tour with. They’re all from the Detroit area as well. We all grew up in the same place and have the same friends and same influences and it just clicked. We’ve been touring nonstop the last two years together. It’s natural for starting this next album to grow with them.”

Halfway through Denis Johnson’s The Laughing Monsters, the question arrives.

From an African-born mercenary to a Danish-American spook comes the essence of this whole fast-paced thriller, the question I suspect Johnson places at the root of a great many men’s great many misdeeds: “Do you really want to go back to that boring existence?”

And with his simple reply of “never,” Roland Nair bares his motivation like his fair European skin to the African sunshine that “would crash down like a hot anvil,” as Johnson writes in the novel’s opening pages.

In style and subject matter, Johnson has chameleoned through the past three-plus decades. He hopped from the drug-addled scoundrels of his celebrated short story collection Jesus’ Son (1992) to the Vietnam-era epic of his National Book Award-winning Tree of Smoke (2007) to his savvy stab at detective noir in Nobody Move(2009). But Johnson’s characters overall—and always his best ones—tend to run, bristling with stubborn (and so often self-destructive) vehemence, away from any sort of boring existence.

The Laughing Monsters begins with Nair’s arrival in Africa after an 11-year absence. Landing in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown, an Atlantic port city that Johnson brings alive by concentrating not so much on the environment but on the rhythm of its people and streets, Nair begins his mission. A NATO intelligence agent, he’s tasked with reporting on one Michael Adriko, an old friend whose history with Nair includes episodes in Sierra Leone’s civil war and America’s post-9/11 fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan. “Michael’s truth lives only in the myth. In the facts and the details, it dies,” Nair observes, though according to his NATO bosses, Michael is currently attached to the U.S. Army and is most likely AWOL.

Even as he files his first report—void of any helpful details—Nair thinks back to the bosses in his home of Amsterdam, rueful about the assignment and defiant at his core: “And while you, my superiors, may think I’ve come to join him in Africa because you’ve dispatched me here, you’re mistaken. I’ve come back because I love the mess. Anarchy. Madness. Things falling apart. Michael only makes my excuse for returning.”

From their first reconnecting moments, the two men act as self-interested operatives, simultaneously plotting together and holding back their true motives. Into this house of mirrors walks slender, elegant and graceful Davidia, Michael’s African-American fiancée. She captures Nair’s lustful mind.

Repeating his mantra of “more will be revealed,” Michael leads the trio from Sierra Leone to Uganda, the details sketchy but the purpose (at least) twofold: The Congolese orphan returns to the land of his people for his wedding, while setting the pieces up for either a deal or a swindle involving enriched uranium. “You just tickle their terrorism bone and they ejaculate all kinds of money,” Michael says of the potential buyers.

Later, as the potential deal grows closer, he adds, “Since nine-eleven, chasing myths and fairy tales has turned into a serious business. An industry. A lucrative one.”

With those terrorism references, the fact that Nair is not wholly American looms significant. It allows Johnson to place America’s role in post-9/11 world muckery in the greater context of centuries of European nations manipulating the world outside their own boundaries, whether colonially, commercially, or clandestinely.

From the mundane (t-shirts bearing soda pop slogans) to the culturally significant (the preponderance of African Creole languages) to the monstrous (Idi Amin comes from the same clan as Michael), the novel displays the European scars that mark modern African life.

To push his story across national and continental boundaries, Johnson returns to the world of intelligence that helped drive Tree of Smoke. The eras may differ, as do the continents, the geopolitics, the nationalities and the allegiances, but the evocation of the type of stress that inhabits men who choose to live far outside themselves does not. In these foreign lands, people commit foreign deeds—do things they should not do. It takes a toll on Nair, bit by bit. No river guides him, but like Joseph Conrad’s Marlow and Kurtz, Nair struggles with losing himself the longer and deeper he lives in Africa. “Every day, more African,” he says toward the end of the novel.

Like Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, The Laughing Monsters finds a literary master taking on a genre novel, infusing a formula with freshness as he stretches the conventions to serve greater purposes. But even though The Laughing Monstersunfolds as a spy thriller, with peril and uncertainty flung constantly at the characters, no big reveal or plot twist, no grand betrayal or jaw-dropping surprise ever jolts the reader.

The Laughing Monsters of the title is a mountain range near Michael’s home in the Congo, the term coined by a frustrated missionary. (It nicely blends in the local lore of voodoo in the thick forest.) But the Laughing Monsters might well be the two main characters themselves. Nair and Michael don’t happen to be driven by much beyond personal greed, but they have a damn fun time along the way. “Adventure is glorious. I don’t know why people put it down,” Nair says during an argument with Davidia about where his intentions—or suspected intentions—lie.

And so, turning away from any type of boring existence, Nair commits to seeing his adventures through, ultimately to capture, torture and, perhaps, even death.

Or, just maybe, to those riches he chases: “There’s no sense calling it a mess until we see how it all turns out.”

Nick Chiericozzi and Mark Perro have been busy leading punk band The Men for the past six years. But not all of the duo’s musical impulses and experiments fit with The Men, so they started Dream Police as another creative outlet.

“It started a few years back, 2010 or so. We always had some stuff that didn’t really fit in with what The Men were doing. It was this funky outlet for us and eventually after The Men had five records, we decided to get back to something smaller,” Chiericozzi says. “It really came from the same place (as The Men), but it didn’t seem like a premeditated thing.”

The Dream Police debut, Hypnotized, is in some ways a wilder affair than The Men, a drum-machine driven krautrock-meets-psychedelia excursion that sounds like anything but a side project for Chiericozzi and Perro.

“It was refreshing and it felt like it brings something out that is more a representation of us than some of the later Men stuff,” Chiericozzi says. “We’d established this really big sound and sometimes something gets lost in that.”

The duo didn’t initially set out to make an album, just started writing some songs last year after a long tour, an experiment to get back to the songwriting process they had at the start of The Men, but going in a different sonic direction. As more songs came, they started thinking about self-releasing an album, but ended up passing the music to their label, Sacred Bones, which agreed to release Hypnotized as Dream Police’s debut.

“We thought about calling it The Men, because it was just us at the center of it, but the band had grown to five, so that wouldn’t be right or fair,” Chiericozzi says. “All of our songs come out of some sort of relationship we have together making music. It’s hard to explain, but it didn’t feel like it was a Men album.”

The character of the album started to emerge once Chiericozzi and Perro started experimenting with a Roland 707 drum machine.

“It was Mark on drums for a lot of the songs, some of them he was playing piano,” he says. “Eventually, we realized the aesthetic of the drum machine would be cool to explore with. We hadn’t done that in a while, nothing centered around that for The Men, and there was this moment of ‘Let’s go in that direction.'”

The recording spanned about six months, with Chiericozzi and Perro and engineer Kyle Keays-Hagerman toying with sounds, meticulously shaping every tone and every part until they had the songs they wanted.

“Mark programmed all those beats and then he and Kyle would try to get the right drum sound for the track. The drums sound different on each song. It’s funny because it’s a computer and you think it’s not going to change, but it does, with mixing and what we added to it on each track to make it stick out,” he says.

“It was a challenge because we really wanted to play everything on it ourselves. The energy was cool. We hadn’t written songs together in a little while because we had another songwriter in the band now,” he says. “We hadn’t worked together in a certain way and it was cool to experience that again. It had been kind of lost with all of the touring and everything. There’s the spark we knew was there and went back to that.”

The album opens with the title song, a blend of wild guitar and powerful drumbeat that’s both a throwback to the primitive punk of The Men and a step in the direction of futuristic electronics.

“That track has a lot of stuff going on. We layered everything around a beat, added a cool synth arpeggio and some cool distorted bluesy guitar,” Chiericozzi says. “Centered around that drum machine, all those elements worked well.”

With a pen or a guitar, he just starts with something simple, a line or a riff, and let’s his art develop from there.

“I always have stuff that’s floating around, but I don’t really know where things are going to go. I’ve tried to have ideas before I start on something, but that’s a lot harder for me to already have a goal and make it happen,” Polizze says. “I just play around and see where it ends up without any expectations. It’s better that way.”

A guitar shredder with an experimental side, Polizze (also of Birds of Maya) began Purling Hiss as a bedroom project, the raw four-tracked recordings made with no expectations. He sent homemade CDRs to radio stations in and near his hometown of Philadelphia. After 2010’s Hissteria and Public Service Announcement and 2011’s Lounge Lizards, fellow Philly rocker Kurt Vile asked Polizze to open for him on tour, so Purling Hiss was reborn as a trio.

“Purling Hiss started just documenting ideas I had in my head. A lot of those old ideas were first take and not really thought out and that’s the way it sounded,” he says. “I always wanted that in the long run. I just like to write music, so I had the idea in the back of my head I’d have a band.”

For the next Purling Hiss album, 2013’s Water on Mars, the band signed to to Drag City and the record turned out far tighter and more focused than the Polizze’s homemade albums.

“It makes a difference when you go into a studio and have a band and have band practice. The way it evolved, it just makes sense,” he says.

Having the backing of an influential indie label has pushed the band’s sound, but the process before Purling Hiss gets to the studio is still pretty much the same.

“Sometimes I’m writing I’m playing on guitar and not really paying attention and something catches my ear and I’ll immediately start working on it. I’ll let it evolve. I never know what direction it’s going to go in,” he says. “I’ll run it through a few different phases, playing it faster or slower. Demos are all experiments.”

For the latest album Weirdon, released Sept. 23, Polizze started writing last summer, demoed over the next several months and went into Black Dirt Studio for 10 days last winter, recording in rural western New York with producer Jason Meagher.

“I whittled it down to a collection of songs I wanted to be well rounded and different from each other,” Polizze says. “The songs are a little bit more expansive than the last record. I didn’t want to force anything. We had a great time recording.”

“It’s a collection of songs that becomes its own thing. I’m trying to get them to be cohesive but they’re on their own at the same time. I don’t really think of a theme (when I’m recording). You can tie them all together by the name of an album, or the look of the art,” he says.

That artwork comes in the form of a bunch of Polizze’s drawings, vaguely psychedelic pen-and-ink flowers and faces, scanned and arranged as a collage. That imagery inspired the title.

“It’s a made-up word, but at the time we were looking at the artwork with all the songs, it kind of fits,” he says.

Drummer Ben Leaphart and bassist Dan Provenzano make Purling Hiss a fully fledged power trio, steadying the trademark loud guitar of Purling Hiss’ early recordings, allowing Polizze to draw in some acoustic guitars and piano while still leaving plenty of room to get weird.

The writing, recording and touring cycle for 2011’s “Only In Dreams” and the follow up EP “End of Daze” was intense for Penny, and in the swirling emotions as she dealt with her mother’s death, that entire time frame was “confused, difficult, disastrous, and at times, redemptive.”

Putting that period behind her, Penny took stock of the songs she’d written for a follow-up album and found they simply didn’t cut it.

“I realized that they just could not constitute the album, that there needed to be a fully cohesive, written-in-one-go type of album. That was the necessary next step,” she says.

Being at such a distinctive endpoint creatively, Penny was ready—and needed—to jump fully into something new. So she shut out the world and spent a week inside her New York apartment, and in a creative fervor, came up with the basic shapes of the 10 new songs that would form the core of “Too True,” songs that put her struggles finally in the past.

“Someone asked me if I’d come out stronger from the experience and all I could really answer was that I came out of it different. But topically, ‘Too True’ represented my moving past all that dominating stuff and finally being able to write about anything else,” she says. “I think I realized I could forgive myself for a lot of stuff I’d been policed by.”

Seeking to capture the momentum of that songwriting burst, Penny went into East West Studios in Los Angeles in November 2012 to capture that darker, more urgent sound and spirit of her new demos. But the heavy touring that year had left her voice in tatters and she had to put the songs back on the shelf while taking the time to heal.

“I had to confront the reality that my voice was destroyed. It was devastating. But it gave me a little extra time to finish some admittedly underdeveloped ideas that were a detriment to the collection of songs. It was, as they say, a blessing in depressing disguise,” she says. “I wrote the bulk of the songs in an inspired haze, and only later started picking them apart and picking out the constants. I dove into a lot of surrealism to better hone some of the songs, as prompted by a very personal new level of self-awareness.”

Taking that pause allowed Penny to realize the songs weren’t as done as she’d thought and in the time she poured over them, he reading list grew to include Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire, Rainer Maria Rilke, Anaïs Nin and Sylvia Plath. Connecting strongly with those writers, Penny says they “felt like artistic collaborators.” One actually was.

That surrealist influence on “Too True” shows up most obviously on “Rimbaud Eyes,” a song that fuses some of the poet’s own lines in with Penny’s lyrics. The result, she says, felt similar to a cover song, like the Dum Dum Girls’ version of The Smiths’ “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.”

Another change for Penny (who tends to write and record Dum Dum Girls records solo, with studio production from Richard Gottehrer and The Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner) was to take her songs in a different sonic direction, spurred in part by a new Eventide guitar pedal.

By her own description, “Too True” sounds like a host of influential bands: Suede, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Stone Roses and the Velvet Underground. She calls it “chasing pop into the dark.”

“Guitars became even more crucial and I brought in some newer sounds. Emotionally, the whole thing had a new urgency to it that needed to be interpreted,” she says.

Released in January on Sub Pop, “Too True” drew significant critical praise, keeping the band out on tour for the bulk of this year. Not bad for that week of “inspired haze.”

BETWEEN THE COLORADO RIVER and downtown Yuma is the old Territorial Prison, its hilltop guard tower overlooking both the restored wetlands and a reinvigorated main drag. Less than a mile drive from that famous Wild West landmark is the Prison Hill Brewing Company, which when it opened in August became the only craft brewery for 165 miles in any direction.

The partners behind the gastropub and brewery embrace Yuma’s history, incorporating details like the iron bars on the Prison Hill logo, and the blending of cultures that comes from sitting at the convergence of Arizona, California, and Mexico. And in a scorching town where the thirsty have traditionally turned to the dominant mass-market brands, the curiosity and anticipation for a new, local brew ran high through the summer preparations.

“I think Yuma was thirsty for a brewery for a long time,” says Nathan Heida, one of Prison Hill’s three owners. “I don’t think beer culture has lines. It’s something that’s a mix. No matter where you are in the world, there’s a culture for it. Now we’re putting that culture smack dab in the middle of Yuma. It’s something for folks who are coming in from Mexico, from California, from Arizona, and for anyone who travels through.”

With its Guinness World Record as the sunniest city on Earth, Yuma thrives on those travelers, counting more than half a million visitors annually and nearly doubling in population during the winter months. Many are agricultural workers, part of a $3.2 billion industry. Others are military, stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and Army Yuma Proving Ground. And then there are the outdoor enthusiasts, drawn by the Colorado River and the nearby sand dunes.

Across Interstate 8 from the Territorial Prison, founded in 1875 and now a state park, drivers entering downtown are welcomed with signs proclaiming Yuma as the “winter vegetable capital of the world” and “gateway to the Great Southwest.” Heida, Amy Biallas, and Chris Wheeler hope to add to that reputation a great brewery.

Heida and Biallas started transforming Yuma’s nightlife and beverage culture in November 2012 when they opened the Pint House, directly across South Main Street from Prison Hill Brewing. Like most Yumans, the couple visit San Diego regularly and wanted to establish something local similar to what they found on vacation less than three hours west.

“We needed a place to match San Diego with better beer variety,” Heida says. “Before the Pint House, the most adventurous thing you could get was maybe a Sam Adams or a Sierra Nevada tap.”

Biallas, who tended bar at the venerable Red’s Bird Cage for a decade, and Heida, a general contractor, took over a downtown storefront from a failing restaurant, performed a whirlwind renovation and opened nine days later.

“Everyone thought we were nuts, that Yuma was a town for just Bud Light and Coors Light and all that,” Biallas says. “There was really no craft-beer market in Yuma, so we just blew people’s minds. That first weekend, we blew through beer and had maybe six half-full kegs left. We’re up to 52 beers now. We’ve had so many cool new beers come in and we’re trying new stuff all the time, and it was just the next natural progression to open a brewery.”

Wheeler, a fourth-generation Yuman who returned home in 2009 after a stint running a biomedical company in San Diego, was an old friend, a Bird Cage and Pint House regular with a homebrewing background.

While studying at the University of Arizona in 1992, Wheeler brewed his first batch of beer. He took a job at Nimbus Brewing Company in 1997, starting on the bottling line before a daytime bartending spot opened up.

“It was so slow during the day that if you’re not doing anything behind the bar, you walk back and hang out with the brewer. If somebody didn’t show up, you get dragged in the back and put on gloves and an apron and do the grunt work,” he says. “Over the course of about two years, I just worked my way up and got more and more responsibility and picked up all the little things over time.”

Wheeler left Nimbus for a job at U of A Liquors, but continued homebrewing, watching closely as the microwbrew industry began its years of explosive growth. The store’s selection expanded as the major Western craft brewers opened distribution to Arizona and Wheeler, along with his UA customers, began turning to more adventurous beers.

“When I first started brewing, I was a big fan of English ales. Sometime in the late ’90s [there was] that Pacific Northwest influence, but I didn’t buy into that heavily hopped style at first. I was a Harp lager and a Bass guy, and then got into my Belgian phase,” he says. “My palate didn’t change until probably 1999 or 2000. But when Stone [Brewing] hit the market, it changed everything. A couple Arrogant Bastards … changes your life.”

With business at the Pint House booming, Hieda and Biallas started thinking about the possibility of adding a brewery to the revitalizing downtown and, over beers, decided to join forces with Wheeler.

“It was a six-month ah-hah moment. It evolved [by] knowing each other and knowing what everybody’s interests were and seeing the success of the Pint House and knowing Yuma was ready for it,” Wheeler says.

The Prison Hill flagship beers reflect the changes Wheeler has incorporated into his style over the years, while being careful not to turn nonadventurous drinkers away. Jailbait Blonde, Lockdown Lager, Warden’s Wheat, Parolee Pale, and a special 3:10 Marzen are among the first offerings, while the brewery’s signature IPA—the Crimin’ Ale—is a special reflection on Yuma’s colorful history.

Yuma High School—the city’s oldest—opened in 1909 and after a fire destroyed the original building, classes were moved to the recently closed prison. In a 1914 state championship football game, the surprised and sore losers from Phoenix railed against those Yuma criminals. The name stuck.

So when the brewery partners settled on Prison Hill, the bells went off. The name—which had a much better ring than Yuma Brewing Company—opened a raft of possibilities, from the Crimin’ Ale to design elements like the back patio entrance, modeled after the prison’s fortified gate, the Sally Port (also the convenient namesake of the Sally Porter).

“The name is a big deal to us. The details are big things. The three of us as partners are completely different people, but we’re all perfectionists in our own way and we all want really cool stuff, everything from the plates to the light fixtures to the way that the light reflects off doors,” Biallas says.

The demolition and build-out went quickly—and cheaply, with Heida as general contractor shaving about 40 percent off the renovation cost. Every wire, pipe, and gas line was upgraded or replaced. Dating to the 1920s, the building has housed a temporary library, a shoe store, and a thrift shop. Today, the light fixtures are made from empty liquor bottles, a granite bar top anchors the middle of the room, and sturdy, wooden tables round out the 180-person space.

“We wanted things to be a little industrial looking and we just ran with that theme,” Wheeler says. “There are a lot of rustic elements, exposed wood, bare concrete floors. It’s inviting without looking penal, but it certainly drew influence from the prison.”

The brewery began serving on Aug. 29, with a standing-room only grand opening crowd that drained eight kegs of the First Offense, a light pale ale crafted especially for the occasion.

“The first week was just nonstop. It’s the buzz of the town,” says Wheeler.

The menu features selections that draw on Yuma’s agricultural base, allowing for a heavy emphasis on fresh and local ingredients. Sauces incorporate the Prison Hill ales. Signature dishes include a burger called The Shank, a hand-pressed patty, stuffed with mozzarella cheese and bacon and served with beer-battered and deep-fried avocado and chipotle ranch; a smoked tri-tip steak sandwich with house-made salsa; Sprung Rolls, the Prison Hill version of spring rolls, made with locally grown produce; and a sampler plate of meats, all smoked over locally harvested mesquite and pecan wood.

In addition to its own stable of beers, Prison Hill plans to collaborate with guest brewers, ranging from locals who brew at home to visitors from larger Arizona and California breweries.

“San Diego beers tend to be really straightforward, really bold. Arizona beers I think tend to be a little more experimental, like watermelon and peach ales,” Wheeler says. “We’re going to pull influences from both. We’re trying to put our stamp on the styles as they are.”

Prison Hill opens in Yuma’s centennial year. And with its growing population—Yuma County is forecast to hit 225,000 next year—Yuma will no longer be the largest metro area in the state without a brewery.

With its current configuration, Prison Hill is capable of producing about 500 barrels a year. The owners hope to expand into local keg distribution, eventually branching to the Phoenix and Tucson markets.

“I’ll make some subtle changes and tweaks for the first year or so,” Wheeler says. “I’m not going to go crazy with production until I know what sells. We have to throw the proverbial beer noodle against the wall a few times.”

While working on renovation and applying for all necessary local, state, and federal licenses, the Prison Hill partners have made sure to do their homework, visiting about 30 breweries across Southern California and Arizona. They looked at systems, from fermenter setups to hops storage to beer-line configuration, conducted market research, and, of course, tasted and tasted.

“There’s a closeness in the brewing industry. Brewers don’t share recipes, but [they’re] very helpful in sharing information and tips. Every time I turn a corner, I’m taking things in. I don’t think I’ve ever come out of a place without learning something new,” Wheeler says.

“There might be a brewery that has a 10-person taproom and a huge production facility, but it’s going to have a similar feeling to a place with a huge taproom and just a five-barrel system,” Wheeler says. “It’s about making something that is pure and true to the form and drinkable. It’s about the love of the beer. That’s something that’s come across from every brewery, whether it’s the massive Stone plant or Four Peaks when it was tiny. And that’s the same goal we have.” ✜

The punk and hardcore roots of Philadelphia’s Restorations are still evident on LP3, but pigeonholing the band is even more difficult this time around.

The Philadelphia band’s third album in four years—out October 28 on SideOneDummy—is the band’s most compelling yet, featuring more focused songwriting, a wider sonic palette and the clear sense that Restorations have tapped into something that will serve them well for the long haul.

Not everything Restorations bring to bear has clear stylistic antecedents, but what does is unimpeachable: straightforward Fugazi-style punk, thundering hardcore, edgy barroom anthems and some psychedelic detours.

The band features Carlin Brown on drums, Dan Zimmerman on bass, Ben Pierce on guitar and keyboards, Dave Klyman on lead guitar and Jon Loudon on guitar and vocals.

Guitar World caught up with Klyman during the calm before the storm to talk about the band’s roots and songwriting, his guitar style and gear and what’s to come for the Restorations.

GUITAR WORLD: When Restorations started, what did you have in mind for a sound or style?

This band started with a minimum of plans and expectations. The most basic of these was to write stories and then form music that complemented those stories. The idea was to keep the spirit of our punk and hardcore roots, but channel it through a more reserved genre blend of indie, alt-country, folk and the like.

There’s a way to keep music interesting and intense without having to literally scream it in someone else’s face. Subtlety was to be the core driver. Of course, plans have a way of growing on their own and songs have a way of writing themselves. Things got bigger and louder as we went along. While elements of that original ethos are certainly present, Restorations’ sound has definitely evolved between our first 7-inch and LP3.

How do you describe your sound?

From the inside looking out, this is always an odd thing to attempt to qualify. It’s been amusing and very flattering to hear all the musical descriptions and comparisons we get from the outside looking in. I accept pretty much every one of them. When asked directly, everyone in the band has a different answer anymore.

The one I usually go with is “Loud Indie Rock.” I feel that’s encompassing enough. I read an interview years ago with an old punk band in which they said something to the effect of, “Every band thinks they’re writing the most ridiculous and groundbreaking stuff in their practice space.” Since then I’ve tried hard to avoid that notion, to somehow put what we’re doing on some other level. I’d like to think we’re pretty damn good, but at its center we’re still just a group of friends with instruments just like every other band should be.

What did you bring to Restorations from Jena Berlin and your other bands?

We’ve all played in a variety of different kinds of bands in the echelon of rock, punk, hardcore and even some metal. I think the biggest aspect that has carried over to Restorations is the energy of the live show. Call it kinetic or whatever, but it’s that knowledge that anything can and will happen on stage that keeps the performance, mind and body moving at all times. I’m also prone to improvisation live and that’s definitely something that’s increased over the years.

From Jena Berlin specifically? Stylistically, my penchant for fast hammer-ons and pull-offs has not gone away, although tapping is becoming a more frequent practice. I’ve also continued to greatly enjoy full step bends and prebends. I’ve tried to expand the use of chord melody, often with finger picking. Every record brings with it the natural compulsion to push skills beyond current capabilities. And since I’m always writing a record of some sort, the push is always there. And there’s always a desire to try new things as well. For example, I’m not very good at sweep picking, but I practice it all the time because you never know what will be the perfect compliment to a song. That’s always been the crux: give the song what it needs. Sometimes you need to add a technical guitar part that takes a lot time and practice to solidify, sometimes you need to cut a technically proficient riff or solo because it just doesn’t belong.

When did you start playing guitar?

I started in seventh grade so that would put me around 12. I’m about to be 32, so it’s been more than half my life. I can’t imagine what I would be doing with myself if I’d never picked it up. I’d probably be a lot more financially successful and a lot less happy.

What guitarists have influenced you over the years?

My influences began fairly typically: Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Traveling Wilburys. Pink Floyd was a particularly big deal. U2 expanded on that. Nirvana came through at just the right time. Then came Green Day and the Offspring. That led me to find West Coast punk like NoFX, Lagwagon, Strung Out, the list goes on from there. Strung Out was especially developmental for me. Their approach to leads and solos is counter to the more typical classic-rock influenced ones I’d been accustomed to. Another crucial band was At the Drive-In.

They blew the doors wide open on alternate chord formations along with atonal and arrhythmic lead runs Their use of effects pedals was captivating as well, a modern step on what Pink Floyd started. I started looking at the guitar beyond just the frets. Any part can be used to create a noise of sorts. Metal came later which is why I think I wound up more on the “artsy” side of playing as opposed to the theory and technical side. Don’t get me wrong, early Metallica and Pantera were great and I think modern bands like Darkest Hour, Unearth, Dark Tranquility, Baroness and so many other are doing great things under that genre umbrella. I just don’t see a lot of that in my playing for Restorations. When I noodle around at home, sure. But I’m influenced by guitarists who were clearly influenced by that sort of playing, so who knows? Like every guitarist, I am an amalgam of everything the sponge of my brain soaks up.

What guitars do you play? What about amps, pedals, etc.?

I’ve been a devotee to the Gibson SG for many years now. I’ve found it to be the most versatile guitar for both resonant low-end rhythm playing as well as clear highs for leads and solos. I also play a Fender Telecaster Baritone guitar with the B string drop tuned to A. I love baritone guitar so much. In the scene I tend to run in, it unfortunately gets pigeonholed as a metal instrument strictly because it can be downtuned into that leaden, droning territory. It’s certainly excellent for that. But I don’t play in a metal band. For Restorations, the baritone fills a different sonic space. There’s a roar, a guttural recognition to it that can’t always be accomplished in standard tuning. I wrote and recorded the majority of LP3 on baritone.

I’ve been through a few different amp setups over the years for various styles. Right now I’m playing a vintage MusicMan HD-130 Reverb. That goes through a 2X15 Emperor cab, easily one of the best musical purchases I’ve made. I really wish they hadn’t ceased production. My pedal board isn’t too complicated right now, but that’s always in flux. For the time being it’s just a boost/overdrive, volume pedal, and a couple different delays. The boost/overdrive I currently run is coincidentally also named Emperor; it’s a product of a local, hand-made boutique company called TSVG Pedals. I highly recommend checking out their full line. I’ve also been thinking about getting back into looping and soundscapes.

What’s the band’s songwriting process?

The intention is to always be collaborative. Sometimes one of us might bring in a structured plan and lay it out for the band. For example, with LP3, the song “Tiny Prayers” was a fully formed concept based around the opening guitar harmonies that came together very quickly. But most songs start as a loose collection of parts and ideas.

For that, look to a song like “Misprint,” which started as just a chord progression that led to one of my favorite lead lines on the whole record. From there the song started forming itself with help and direction from everyone. Both these methods of songwriting undergo reformations and addition/subtraction. Vocals come in and that throws some changes in as well. Most songs start from one member’s quiet, acoustic recording done in the bedroom and then comes into the practice space and gets blown out as loudly as possible.

What was the experience recording LP3?

Comparatively speaking, LP3 was a breeze. That’s not to say we didn’t work hard and go for the best performance possible. We had a bit more time to focus on writing and making sure the songs were as complete as they could be before we even set foot in the studio. At this point, we’ve worked with Jon Low and Miner Street Recordings enough that we have a solid rapport. Low mixed our first full-length and produced, engineered, and mixed the A/B 7-inch, LP2 and LP3. He’s not just our producer, he’s also a good friend. It makes for smooth, comfortable, productive sessions. I hope that translates to the listener.

What sets this new record apart from Restorations’ other albums?

LP3 sees the band locking into our roles more comfortably as a unit. As a songwriter, it’s really important to play your best, sure. But it’s also really important to know when not to play. It might not seem so, but a lot of LP3 is an exercise in restraint, a conscious effort to make sure the songs aren’t cluttered with distractions. This goes back to what I was saying earlier about sometimes having to cut a lead or solo, even if it’s really impressive or fun. If it’s tripping over the lead vocal, then it’s got to go. This goes for any instrument. Everything should be a part of one textural goal. This way, when it’s finally time for me to rip through a song with a solo, it’s effective in context with the whole record, not just an excuse for me to shred away.

What’s your dream guitar?

Oh, man, I’d love to have so many different kinds of guitars and guitar-related instruments. But the answer is a true vintage SG, just because. Electrical Guitar Company creates all aluminum, custom guitars and getting a baritone made by them is high on the list of future desires. Every time I go into a music shop and they have the reissue Fender VI, I want so badly to take it home. I just can’t justify it yet. Speaking of Fender, the best bass I ever was lucky enough to play was, I believe, a ‘76 Precision Bass.

I’d really like one of those for the arsenal as well. Learning pedal steel guitar is something I’ve been interested in for years and haven’t been able to jump into. The same goes for violin. You always see the clichéd rock star documentary, or even Spinal Tap, where the guitarist has hundreds of guitars just sitting around. Sure, that’s cool. But if someone ever cared enough to take a look, I’d prefer to have a smaller, more diverse collection and have to explain the purpose and function of each instrument.

If you could pick any guitarist, living or dead, to jam with, who would it be?

I owe David Gilmore from Pink Floyd a nice drink and the biggest handshake. Whether I mean to or not, I somehow rip him off in nearly every lead or solo I’ve written. If I was in a room with him and he leaned into one of his prebends from “Brain Damage,” I think I’d cry.

What’s next for Restorations?

In celebration of the release of LP3, we’ll be on the road for a bit to close out 2014 and head into 2015. This year should prove to be very interesting for us. Nothing I can comment on fully just yet. Let’s just say we hope to see all of you very soon.

Ahmed Gallab’s personal history is written in the different styles and sounds on “Mean Love.”

Gallab, who records under the name Sinkane, summoned the percussive rhythms from his Sudanese childhood, the dreamy pop that calmed his alienated teen years in suburban Ohio, and various flavors of synth-heavy, dance-oriented rock from his stints playing in well-regarded indie bands Caribou, Yeasayer and Of Montreal.

“When I start working on my music, I think it tells me what it wants to sound like. I don’t really tell the record what I want,” Gallab says. “I’ve traveled around a lot and I’m influenced by so many different things, certain sounds start speaking to me and they don’t go away.

“The things that I used on the record are the things that spoke to me the most, like the pedal steel or the reggae groove or the falsetto from Motown Records or African drumming. I see relationships between all of those different kinds of music.”

The multi-instrumentalist made his debut for James Murphy’s DFA Records on 2012’s “Mars,” a similarly eclectic blend of soul, pop, country and dance music. For “Mean Love,” Gallab teamed with producer Greg Lofaro to further hone in on a multi-faceted style that could only come form someone with his life experience.

“I like to challenge myself. In my head, I’ve found an intellectual relationship between all those different kinds of music. They feel like they have the same kind of energy in the music they make,” he says. “When I was working on this album, I wanted to make an album that had me stand alone as my own person, as someone who’s no longer the former player of this band or that band. I wanted to prove to myself and to the listeners that I’m just as capable of making music as these other guys, music that stands beside them rather than beneath them.”

The wheels for Sinkane were already in motion before Gallab started playing for Caribou, Yeasayer or Of Montreal, but he says at the time he felt it was important to step back and learn what he could from those bands and songwriters.

“I’ve always wanted to play my own stuff. I feel like I’m too opinionated to not do that. Whether I wanted to do that in tandem with friends and other people’s music or going out on my own, that was a challenge,” he says. “I felt like it was time for me to do something on my own or otherwise I’d be stuck. If you play other people’s music only, it turns into kind of handcuffs. It’s such a good gig and it’s hard to let go.”

Gallab and Lofaro started working on the new album right after “Mars” was released, taking some of the musical ideas that worked on that record—and its predecessors “Color Voice (2008) and “Sinkane (2009)—and refining them more to fit Gallab’s vocals better.

“The first few records were so ornate. It was throwing the kitchen sink at the project. I didn’t stop adding more and more layers,” he says. “As I started playing ‘Mars’ live, I realized how hard it is to replicate. So now I think about playing the songs live. A lot of the content in the music (on “Mean Love”) came from Greg and I talking about doing a record that had the vocals being the focal point of the music.”

Gallab says there are lots of ways to interpret his songs, but that for him, the songwriting was a therapeutic process, facing down some issues in his life that he hadn’t worked out in songs before. That aspect of the record comes through most forcefully on “Son,” with a refrain that centers directly on the notion of identity: “I will not forget where I came from.”

“As I was singing the songs and learning more about the music, the term ‘tough love’ came up and I had to address the themes in my life that needed to be addressed. I feel a lot lighter now,” he says. “To me, it’s very cathartic to write these songs.”

“Mean Love” is the first time Gallab has truly captured on record the complex and beautifully intricate vision he has for his music.

“When it all starts to make sense in your mind that’s one thing, but it’s really hard to convince people of your ideas when you’re so ambitious,” he says. “You always believe in what you’re thinking about, but when you can see it and hold onto it and see it’s working, it’s crazy and it gives you a lot of energy. That’s probably the most inspiring thing.”